Lineup
Through live interviews, listening sessions, art exhibitions with select LGW? performers and all things print and sound, Kapitaal will transform into a three-day meeting place for craftsmanship and de...
Le Mini Who? is a spin-off festival of Le Guess Who?. It turns venues, cafes, art spaces and even a fire station of the fast-developing and creative area Cartesius into improvised venues for (mainly)...
As a spin-off festival of Le Guess Who?, Le Mini Who? transforms many of Utrecht’s local bars, restaurants, venues and warehouses into improvised venues for (mainly) Dutch underground bands to p...
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Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver
Part film, part baptism, in Black Mother director Khalik Allah brings us on a spiritual journey through Jamaica. Soaking up its bustling metropolises and...
Holly Herndon’s vital album ‘PROTO’ is an inquisitive, affirmative work that interplays elements like Sacred Harp choirs with an A.I.-entity called Spawn, therefore splicing the orga...
Holly Herndon’s vital album ‘PROTO’ is an inquisitive, affirmative work that interplays elements like Sacred Harp choirs with an A.I.-entity called Spawn, therefore splicing the orga...
Embracing music from both bygone and current eras, Miranda Cuckson is regarded as one of the most acclaimed performers of classical and modern music. The New York Times called Cuckson “a prodigi...
Holly Herndon’s vital album ‘PROTO’ is an inquisitive, affirmative work that interplays elements like Sacred Harp choirs with an A.I.-entity called Spawn, therefore splicing the orga...
Whether it’s a stage, a computer screen or a page from a book: Jenny Hval’s multi-disciplinary work aims to break beyond these confining zones to form a deeper connection with her audience...
Spazio Disponibile presents
Few DJs and producers are as universally acclaimed in techno circles as Italian connoisseur Donato Dozzy. Dozzy possesses that rare ability to zigzag his way into peoples&...
Composer and cellist Leila Bordreuil grew up in rural Aix-en-Provence, France, before moving to Brooklyn in 2012. Having composed in silence for most of her life, the bustle of Broadway didn’t d...
DJINN, an alliance formed by musicians in Swedish outfits Hills and GOAT, has quickly flourished into a marvel in and of itself. Extracting sonics from the fabric of Alice Coltrane’s astral jazz...
Cycle or walk through Utrecht suburb Lombok's main street, and you're immediately welcomed by Turkish and Moroccan grocery stores, bakeries, the smell of kebab, and huge piles of colorful fruits sold...
Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver
In this genre-defying film, Zerzura follows a young man from a small village in Niger who leaves home in search of an enchanted oasis. His journey leads h...
DJ Quesadilla and DJ Fitz, two swashbuckling archeologists of music who habitually turn dancefloors all over the world into journeys of sweet sonic oblivion. The former is one of the most prominent fi...
For a band whose name translates to “Trees, Grass and Stone”, obviously, these lionized Swedish innovators have upheld their utopian ideals both in ethos and sound since the early 70&rsquo...
Presented by Le Guess Who? & BAK - basis voor actuele kunst
Le Guess Who? and Jeanne van Heeswijk connected the Chicago-based pianist, clarinetist and composer Angel Bat Dawid with visual artist,...
Every year, Le Feast invites you into a living room in Utrecht, to enjoy a feast together with people you don't know (yet). Many Utrechtian home-chefs will transform their living room into a cozy brun...
Overviewing the impulsive career of Asha Puthli, it’s dizzying how one individual can encapsulate such a ridiculous range of juxtapositions. Puthli’s notoriety really depends on who you as...
Kiwi musician Aldous Harding stops you dead in your tracks with her remarkable dark folk hymns. A magnetic stage presence, Harding taps into different moods and characters, often in the very same song...
Minyo Crusaders breathe new life into traditional Japanese folk songs (‘minyo’) by merging them with Latin, African and Caribbean rhythms and flourishes of exotica. By doing so, the 10-pie...
Every year, Le Feast invites you into a living room in Utrecht, to enjoy a feast together with people you don't know (yet). Many Utrechtian home-chefs will transform their living room into a cozy brun...
Like Patrick Higgins, Tyondai Braxton is an innovator in the purest sense. As a former member of Battles, he ventured far beyond the outer dimensions of what we consider pop music. Braxton earned his...
He reimagines classical composers like Bach with modern-day instrumentation. He interrogates the role of individuality in the digital world. He tackles the cataclysms of climate change. Indeed, music...
Like Stereolab and Broadcast exemplified so fervently before them, Empath’s offbeat brand of guitar pop turns discord and noise on their upside, turning and twisting them into agents of jo...
“Her playing conjures a vision of some vintage piano genius like Art Tatum coming back to life and getting high on post-minimalism,” Pitchfork once concluded. Indeed, if some renowned comp...
Príncipe Discos presents, hosted by FACT
“Her music is dazzling in all senses, a trance-inducing tangle of boxy drums, vivid swirls of synthetic melody and buzzsaw grime bass,” The...
Príncipe Discos presents, hosted by FACT
DJ Firmeza is a member of the Príncipe Discos crew, one of the most interesting and landmark-shifting movements within the modern European club...
Producer and musician Cate Le Bon creates a unique vocabulary of freak folk, post-punk and psych pop. Thanks to her jagged guitar playing and Welsh diction, Le Bon is the definition of elusive. Behind...
The power of the imagination is arguably the greatest during youth, and Oslo-based collective DNA? AND? bring this notion into play in the most remarkable fashion. Comprised of special needs children...
The adventurous, innovative Dutch band The Ex have defied categorization ever since their origination in 1979. Born out of the punk explosion, when anything and everything was possible, the band have...
Naming a band after something concise and universal seems to naturally generate some of the most physically punishing music in existence. If Sunn O))) and Sleep are part of a three-headed beast of &ld...
Mélissa Laveaux’s most recent album ‘Radyo Siwèl’ reclaims the Ottawa-born, Paris-based songwriter’s Haitian roots with a collection of native folk spirituals. Th...
Oorutaichi takes the word ‘fun’ into hyperdrive. This Japanese producer shakes the rules of techno, electro pop and sampling like a can of soda and lets things fly with contagious enthusia...
Fashion designer Iris van Herpen and sound artist Salvador Breed curate a lineup of artists and performances symbolizing their highly intertwined aesthetics, developed over years of collaborating on n...
Lebanese-born producer and DJ Rabih Beaini (formerly known as Morphosis) specializes in grainy, imaginative analogue techno. A range of influences—improvisational jazz, krautrock, new wave, elec...
Together, the most revered merchant of noise and two of the most resounding voices in grime form an alliance of gritty UK fringe music that simply knows no equal. These three artists will stretch the...
Pop music canon has always compelled the listener to unravel the mystery behind the song. But the music of Aldous Harding inspires something arguably more powerful: an individual whose voice can seaml...
The duo Ko Shin Moon are entertaining in a similar way as back when you changed the instruments of sample tracks on a keyboard, just out of sheer curiosity how it would sound. Musicians Axel Moon and...
Over the past decade, Malian, Grammy-nominated artist, musician, and actress Fatoumata Diawara has been universally praised as one of Africa’s most trailblazing and outspoken voices. Diawara&rsq...
Serrated guitar assaults, check. Sinister bass rumble, check. Piercing drums, check. And a sardonic sneer that oozes pure misanthropic disdain, well, check. Indeed, Italia 90 checks off a lot of boxes...
Ami Dang, a Sikh-American electronic pop artist living in Baltimore, splurges the canvas with a stupefying range of influences, including Indian hymns, Bollywood hits and nineties diva house. She swir...
Presented by Centraal Museum
Visual artist Eva Spierenburg from Zeist is the winner of the K.F. Hein Stipendium 2018. Physicality is omnipresent in Spierenburg’s work. Whether it is the visuali...
In the early 70’s, free-jazz evangelists Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids sprung from the tutelage of the great Cecil Taylor. Drawing furthermore from the vast cosmos of Fela Kuti, Pharaoh Sand...
Efterklang singer Casper Clausen presents his (yet to be released) solo music, made up in a small studio by the river in Cacilhas (Lisbon). With songwriting still in progress, Casper has only played s...
In the late 80’s, Doug Hream Blunt moonlighted music with a job at a care home in San Francisco. As a relative late bloomer at age 35, he started writing songs after attending a How To Start A B...
Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver
Franco Rosso’s Babylon had its world premiere at Cannes in 1980 but was deemed “too controversial, and likely to incite racial tension”...
Oiseaux Tempête’s cross-cultural, multi-genre improv rock has a tendency to unfold in places of turmoil, recording records in Greece, Turkey and Lebanon in the past. The core duo of Fr&eac...
Conrad Tao first touched a piano as a one-year-old toddler, and by the age of eight, he already performed Mozart’s Concerto No. 12. So, becoming one of the most exciting new faces in classical m...
Tongue-in-cheek, hilarious and often controversial, Ghanaian duo FOKN Bois coined their sound as gospel porn rap, which might be a cryptic way of calling their art slyly subversive. Their music has be...
Presented by Centraal Museum
Alles is Rond (All Is Round) was made in the city where Louis Andriessen and Madelon Hooykaas both grew up: Utrecht. Both artists have worked together before, but this is...
Having become somewhat of a mainstay in Utrecht, Stranded FM celebrate and share music from all over the globe, becoming the city’s bastion for discovering fresh sounds. During their four-year r...
Collaboratorium
The cartoon physics of Brooklyn experimental outfit Zs, the Lovecraftian doom tandem Ex Eye with Colin Stetson, the blast beat barrages of Liturgy; Greg Fox has an uncanny knack for t...
Under the name Nivhek, Liz Harris (Grouper) maps richly detailed inner worlds where enigmatic vibrations and voices glide dimly in and out of the void. Double album ‘After its own death / Walkin...
Quintessential Ethio-groove performer Ayalèw Mesfin has joined forces with the renowned US-based ensemble Debo band for his first European live performance ever, and in truth, few collaboration...
Adrift somewhere in purgatory between Syd Barrett and Robert Wyatt, the immense spacious beauty of Ed Dowie’s debut LP ‘The Uncle Sold’ can’t be overstated enough. Drawing insp...
Presented by Le Guess Who? & Utrecht University
In the wake of his recently published fifth book ‘Silenced by Sound: the Music Meritocracy Myth’ and driven by his ongoing field-record...
Presented by BAK - basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht
Trainings for the Not-Yet is a project convened by artist Jeanne van Heeswijk and BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, in collaboration with many other...
Throughout her chronicle of life, it’s easy to understand how Vivien Goldman earned the title ‘Punk Professor’. In the 70s, Goldman wasn’t simply satisfied standing on the side...
The title track of Lifafa’s most recent album ‘Jaago’ tells you all you need to know about the Indian producer, veering from its swooning, rustic flirtations to joyous electronic res...
In the vocabulary of Icelandic artist dj. flugvél og geimskip – translation: ‘dj airplane or spaceship’ – the notion of choice is pretty overrated. Why not rapturously e...
In 1995, Serbian-born, Brazil-based producer Mitar Subotić – also known as Suba and Rex Illusivii – created ‘Wayang’, an album that would be considered visionary even by today&...
Joseph Shabason demonstrated his mastery of woodwind, horn and brass instruments on iconic records such as Destroyer’s ‘Kaputt’ and The War On Drugs’ ‘Lost In The Dream&r...
In her home country of Zimbabwe, music icon Stella Chiweshe is endearingly called The Queen of Mbira, becoming the first female artist to gain widespread recognition for a strictly male-dominated disc...
Collaboratorium
With Brian Chippendale and Greg Fox – two figures of drum royalty – are in the neighborhood, we felt a deep urge to bring them together in the same room. Both artists have...
The most riveting, template-shifting music often comes from a state of displacement or transience, and the Luxembourg-based, Cape Verde-born ensemble Grupo Pilon is certainly no exception. Founded by...
‘FIS’ stands for ‘forever in search’, and in all respects, this is exactly the intent of producer Olly Peryman. The monumental soundscapes of FIS highlight that sense continuit...
You know that mechanism where you whisper a message in a circle of people – and as its passed on back to you, that message becomes distorted? That’s a little bit what Portland duo Visible...
Taiwan duo Scattered Purgatory is named after a Taoist ritual that redeems and releases souls from a state between life and death. As it turns out, they adopt this notion quite literally in both perfo...
Presented by Le Guess Who? & Centraal Museum
Initiated in 2015, Elegy is a long-term commemorative performance project by South African artist Gabrielle Goliath. Staged in various locations...
Hidden Musics
Ustad Saami is the last living khayál master, widely considered a precursor of qawwali music that originated in Pakistan. That’s no small distinction, as Saami’s voic...
Presented by SPRING Performing Arts Festival
Happiness explores the area where man and artificiality converge, where synthetic substances help us to re-humanise, maxi-humanise or, for a while, abando...
Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver
Lutz Gregor’s documentary Mali Blues takes a vivid look at the West-African nation’s rich and diverse musical fabric, following folk star Fato...
The sprawling universe that is the great Acid Mothers Temple was formed in 1995 by Kawabata Makoto. This fabled Japanese collective always held a deep dedication and devotion to improvised music. From...
Deerhoof is one of those fantastic beasts the world has been lucky to find, an anomaly of a band that can twist any crunch of noise into saccharine hook-heavy pop euphoria. Their wide-eyed trial-and-e...
Roberto SOLO Fonseca still lives in the heart of his birthplace Havana, which explains why his adaptation of Cuba’s musical heritage remains so refreshingly renegade and immediate. He spawned ex...
Hidden Musics
Christopher C. King’s relationship with the folk traditions of Epirus, a mountain region connecting Greece with the southern parts of Albania, occupies a special place in his hear...
Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver
This heart-warming road movie, directed by Philippe Godeau, follows the titular protagonist, the 13-year-old Senegalese Yao, in his quest to meet his hero...
Music derived from Rastafarian sound system culture has known many incarnations over time, but Jah Shaka remains true to its spiritual roots and essence. He arrived as teenager from Jamaica in London...
Xylouris White is firmly rooted in the past and future: a tight alliance between Greek musician and songwriter Georgios Xylouris and drummer Jim White. Xylouris White reconciles not only the tandem&rs...
Presented by Le Guess Who? & Centraal Museum
James Merry is a visual artist, originally from Gloucestershire in the UK, who is now based in Iceland where he has been living and working with Bj&ou...
Stella Chiweshe, The Queen of Mbira, broke new ground by becoming the first artist to successfully combine the mbira with the marimba. She took up the homegrown instrument back in 1964, originally use...
Hosted by FACT
A pact made between Justin ‘JK Flesh’ Broadrick and Takeaki ‘Goth-Trad’ Maruyama when they released split-EP ‘Knights Of The Black Table’ resulted i...
The words ‘wacky’ and ‘profound’ often walk hand-in-hand in the world of Gruff Rhys. The Welsh artist is best known as spearhead of perpetually wry pop oddballs Super Furry Ani...
Hosted by FACT
Slikback is Freddy Njau, an emerging Kenyan producer currently situated in Poland. Associated with the infectious Kampala collective Nyege Nyege, his 2019 EP Tomo renders footwork, gri...
Like some people collect stamps, Sofia Jernberg collects vocal disciplines. Born in Ethiopia in 1983, the Oslo-based artist mastered myriad styles – from opera singing to pitchless singing &ndas...
Presented by Le Guess Who?, Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, No Seat At The Table, BAK - basis voor actuele kunst, Urban Futures Studio (Utrecht University), RAUM
“In urban social...
After 15 years of performing for passersby at Paris’s Line 2 Metro, Algerian musician Mohamed Lamouri’s trademark ragged voice and buoyant Casio keyboard melodies are reaching ears all ove...
Canadian artist Sarah Davachi's creates immersive soundscapes with a playful exchange between ancient acoustic instrumentation and analogue synths. Davachi is a real sonic thrill-seeker who enjoys pus...
The story of Somalia’s legendary Dur-Dur Band is one of regrouping and resilience. In the 80s, their vibrant Somali funk music embedded the nightlife of the capital of Mogadishu. Since dictator...
With a super contagious cocktail of Afrobeat, disco and funk, Arp Frique is the past, present and future scrambled together in one groovy, bright-lit musical skirmish. The Dutch producer’s new l...
Drone-based music often wields the power to blur that stark hierarchy between audience and stage, to level everyone in the room as both participant and listener. Korean duo TENGGER are no exception to...
US-born, Swedish-based artist Kali Malone builds a truly remarkable synthesis of analog and electronic music, drawing in listeners with discernible warmth and timelessness. Whether she’s utilizi...
Michele Mercure’s shrouded cinematic works overlap ambient, abstract, and industrial sensibilities, always with a keen and playful sense of their surroundings and acoustics. Not surprisingly, th...
Presented by Le Guess Who? & Centraal Museum
As co-creative director for Björk on visuals, mask-maker James Merry is primarily known for his hand embroidery on sportswear, but he also create...
Before Vicky Chow's performance in TivoliVredenburg's Hertz (curated by Patrick Higgins), the Canadian piano virtuoso will perform at Domplein as part of the Keys of Light project,...
The Chilean colossus known as Föllakzoid, are clerics of both the cosmic heritage of Can and the more progressive electronics. The trio are no longer bound by concept or narrative on their latest...
Great pop songs with magic sprinkles of Eastern soundtracks, Spaghetti Western’s spacious twang and some grooving yé-yé sounds, that’s Khana Bierbood in a nutshell. Not surpr...
Many nomadic Tuareg artists channel and preserve the vibrancy of life that was once the everyday in Mali. Ahmed Ag Kaedy initially set out to do the same, but instead his haunting eight-track LP...
In cooperation with Gaudeamus
AEAEA is the new duo from composers and performers Patrick Higgins and Nicolas Jaar. Utilizing instrumental performance and live digital resampling, the aim of the group...
Felix Manuel’s ears are attuned to the spontaneity of jazz while his production chops create original compositions out of a wellspring of samples, textures and beats. Manuel’s extraordinar...
Le Guess Who?-curator Patrick Higgins, visual artist Matthew Schreiber and choreographer Monica Mirabile will present the European premiere of their awe-inspired audiovisual project DOSSIER X, immersi...
One famous sci-fi film once sported the tagline ‘in space no one can hear you scream’, but Prison Religion put that hypothesis to the test and then some. This Richmond, Virginia-based coll...
This blood pact marries the ink-black, minimal productions of Alessio Natalizia (aka Not Waving and member of Kompakt stalwarts Walls) with the smoke-suffused vocal drawl of alt-rock minstrel Mark Lan...
With her enrapturing deviations of electronic music, R&B, jazz and all-out pop, Sudan Archives - born Brittney Parks - doesn’t just bend the rules, she breaks them. Her innovative take on th...
In 1979, The Raincoats helped shape the timeless notion that punk is what you make it to be—an act of raw expression, not any one sound. Their anarchy was poetic. The group’s debut album &...
Collaboratorium
At this year’s Le Guess Who?, drummer Greg Fox (Liturgy, Ben Frost, Ex Eye) will be the festival’s whimsical X-factor. One of the artists he will court is composer and for...
When Girl Band prowl the stage, you’d best prepare for a barb-wired wallop of first class agit-rock. This Irish wrecking crew has become one of the most fearsome live units of the decade thanks...
Caspar Brötzmann has embraced a similar vocation as his father, free jazz legend Peter Brötzmann: disrupt conventions through the virtues of noise, innovation, and chaotic physical performan...
In their four-decade career, The Ex have experimented with countless styles and ideas. They are revered by many of their guitar-wielding peers, notably Sonic Youth, Tortoise, and Steve Albini. But the...
Hosted by FACT
Belgrade-based DJ Vladimir Ivkovic sees his chosen profession as a deeper philosophy than just filling up dancefloors. For him, DJing is a way to enter or create new places, to trigger...
Presented by Le Guess Who? & De Utrechtse Boekenbar
Within the setting of one of Utrechts’ finest curated bookstores, our artistic director Bob van Heur will discuss with Grammy-winning pro...
Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver
The directorial debut from Boots Riley presents an alternate reality of present-day Oakland, California, when telemarketer Cassius Green finds himself in...
Lombok Festival, one of Le Guess Who?’s satellite events, returns on Friday 8 November. The freely accessible festival is a celebration of the cultural diversity of this city’s district, i...
Amnesia Scanner isn’t so much music as it is a movement, one that intrudes living rooms and sweltering, neon-lit dancefloors alike. The Berlin-based duo’s profoundly impressive debut &lsqu...
Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver
The Devil and Daniel Johnston is a stunning portrait of a musical genius who nearly slipped away. Director Jeff Feuerzeig exquisitely depicts a perfect ex...
Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver, hosted by John Doran (The Quietus)
Hream follows the 25+ year career male nurse and adult music student Doug Hream Blunt as he embarks on a world tour, p...
Moon Duo’s torrent blotchy psychedelics inventively coalesce with meditative, minimalist pop. Indeed, this is inflammatory music that submerges and manifests within the subconscious like a livin...
Presented by Le Guess Who? & Springhaver
Following the footsteps of Islamic mystics on the Indian subcontinent of Pakistan, the Swiss director Annette Berger managed to document the spiritual eve...
Le Bazarre is a renowned and travelling market inspired by quality vintage, second hand and indie craft. It hosts curated vendors and takes place on Utrecht’s famous Domplein (Dom Square), locat...
Lightning Bolt’s floor shows are the stuff of myth and legend, unleashing a hailstorm of noise that would leave every venue smoldering in dust and vapors for weeks. Two decades after their accla...
Indeed, as adroit players of the harp and the violin respectively, Marilu Donovan and Adam Markiewicz’s joint project LEYA inspired some emphatically gorgeous music. With the help of fellow expe...
Cellist and composer Mariel Roberts plays her instrument of choice like an actor performs a scene, completely engrossed and enraptured within the composition’s totality. As both solo performer a...
Presented by IMPAKT - Centre for Media Culture
The Sound Of One Computer Thinking invokes a paradox or question that is essentially unanswerable. Are love, death or humour uniquely human or biologica...
Presented by Le Guess Who? & Fotodok & Casco Art Institute
Being born and raised on the island of Curaçao, the work of Kevin Osepa (1994) revolves around his identity and the identity...
As J-E-T-S, producer compadres Jimmy Edgar and Machinedrum (Travis Stewart) developed a project that’s a wee bit more complex than your average cross-pollination of ideas. By applying their comm...
In cooperation with Utrecht Early Music Festival
Olga Pashchenko, one of the world’s most accomplished piano and keyboard virtuosos, will bring a unique take on one of the most famous horror so...
Russian collective Shortparis is all about tension, friction and disruption, obscuring the boundaries between audiovisual theatre, techno raves and punk rock performance. Whether it’s shattering...
Since its inception a decade ago, King Midas Sound’s gloom-ridden transmutations of dub, lover’s rock and ambient music have made an unyielding impression. Producer Kevin Martin (The Bug)...
As Lone Taxidermist, musician, performance artist, costume maker and provocateur Natalie Sharp relishes in the grotesque. Her unruly and flamboyant electro-punk performances make audiences an active p...
Godflesh is an austere beast that intersects elements of industrial, metal, noise rock and post-punk in truly defiant, engrossing fashion. With its juggernaut drum thuds, shredding bass throbs, cauter...
Prana Crafter summons cobwebbed guitar meditations, kosmische drones, and mystic acid folk mantras. In their 2018 Best Albums-list, Aquarium Drunkard described William Sol’s project as “an...
A librarian by day, Richard Youngs spends pretty much every other minute of his waking life living and breathing music. His fascinations reach all corners of the world, from Syd Barrett’s quirky...
Mega Bog instills a wonderful and somewhat disorienting kind of confusion on her stunning latest LP ‘Dolphine’, conjuring a nautical journey of seventies folk, soft rock, new age and psych...
Príncipe Discos presents, hosted by FACT
DJ Marfox’s raves are like spinning a Ferris wheel of Afro-Caribbean beats, Kuduro, footwork, grime and urban electronics until it goes supersoni...
Equally adept at noisy, feedback-laden jams as spaced-out, repetitive voyages, Mythic Sunship's self-styled "anaconda rock" has been described as one of the most riveting movements of the European psy...
The Sweet Release Of Death triumph over doom-and-gloom with a pinch of dark humor and a penchant for stretching guitar-based music’s outer peripheries. The group forms a maelstrom of ear-splitti...
Musician, producer and composer Kevin Richard Martin’s chosen moniker has always been a fitting one. As a defiant experimentalist ceaselessly exploring sonic extremities, contrasts and frictiona...
Acid Rooster are pretty much a wet dream for heads who cram their cabinets with Amon Düül, Spacemen 3, Wooden Shjips and Magma. The dynamics of this band diverge from weightless, spaced out...
Sarah Louise Henson operates from the roots of Appalachian folk music, but is likewise influenced by spiritual jazz, contemporary classical music and even new age. Her music has never sounded as penet...
Porto collective HHY & The Macumbas compose mind-blowing permutations of experimental jazz, dubbed-out noise, and hypnotic African folk. Lead by artist Jonathan Saldanha and a rotating cast of pla...
Flaunting an impressive resume of bands (notably as singer/guitarist of trance-rock cosmonauts Spacemen3) and production credits (Panda Bear, MGMT, Beach House), Pete Kember’s genius has now spa...
Composer Maarten Vos is what you’d call a voyager: he transforms traditional instrumentation into newfangled sounds and wields technology like something intricately human. Known as much for his...
Named after a Yoruba deity, OSHUN preaches spirituality, rebirth, identity, unity and the blessings of Mother Earth with an Afrofuturistic center of gravity. The duo of Niambi Sala and Thandiwe...
As a teenager, Klavikon’s Leon Michener saved years worth of allowance to get himself a small analogue Moog synth. Needless to say, Michener has yet to surface from the rabbit hole experimentali...
After initially cutting her teeth with critically-acclaimed drone ensemble Vibracathedral Orchestra, Bridget Hayden’s first solo outing ‘An Indifferent Ocean’ turned a lot of heads w...
Norwegian-born, Berlin-based artist Stíne Janvin has the special ability to morph and manipulate her vocals into beautiful sound abstractions, to the point even where you forget it’s a vo...
Regarded as one of Chicago’s most versatile and in-demand drummers, Makaya McCraven moves between genres like jazz, hip-hop and funk at lightning speed. Unquestionably respected as a jazz artist...
When ex- COIL member Drew McDowall decided to revive the group’s 1998 masterpiece ‘Time Machines’ to the present, two decades after its release, the joke was probably not lost on him...
Whether it’s the early, more electronic-driven beginnings or excavating field recordings at an abandoned settlement in the Arctic Circle, these Danish pop adventurers express boundless enthusias...
Hidden Musics
Grammy-winning producer and author Ian Brennan has accumulated a resume that would make anyone in his fields blush. Brennan’s most pertinent and important work, however, isn&rsquo...
Tropical Fuck Storm’s wailing backing harmonies sound like a coven chanting hellish incantations, and the filthy percussive thrusts, the otherworldly synth flourishes of the band’s debut L...
YĪN YĪN is a jam-packed romp of South East Asian psych pop, funk, disco grooves and electronic music. The project was conceived by Kees Berkers and Yves Lennertz, two familiar faces in the Maastricht...
Whether they intend to or not, Negativland have bursted many bubbles over the decades with their quizzical remapping of pop culture, media and advertising. Though Negativland consider themselves artis...
In cooperation with Gaudeamus
Ivan Vukosavljević’s brand new work arms Ensemble Klang with an array of deconstructed electric guitars, the ensemble reborn as prepared/tabletop/eBow guitarists....
Jonathan Bremer and Morten McCoy are two Danish musicians knee-deep in many different endeavors. Bremer is a renowned jazz player, producer and owner of the Unity Rec. label. McCoy, meanwhile, is a pi...
Former Screaming Tea Party-member Koichi Yamanoha was once better known for his scream than his whisper. ‘Hazy Eyes Maybe’, the Japanese-born, London-based musician’s debut LP under...
Collaboratorium
Harpist Mary Lattimore and guitarist William Tyler may have honed radically different string-instruments, their respective cunning for vivid storytelling with instrumental music is re...
Hidden Musics
Lakha Khan is a living legend of Rajasthani folk music. As the undisputed master of the sindhi sarangi, Khan is one of the last remaining Manganiyars to have honed this complex instrume...
Unconventional and hard to categorize, producer/lyricist Quelle Chris is well-versed in several genres, including punk rock, poetry, abstract soul, and experimental hip-hop. As a beatsmith, he tends t...
Mary Lattimore is a Los Angeles-based musician and composer who uses her Lyon and Healy concert grand harp to conjure up beautiful glacial melodies that evoke a host of memories, landscapes and allusi...
Spazio Disponibile presents
Crossing Avenue is one of the central projects of Donato Dozzy's and Neel's Spazio Disponibile label. Debut EP ‘Malandra’ provides a taste of what to expect: a...
The words ‘holy minimalist’ immediately jump out when skimming the artist biography of Mexican producer Murcof. Fernando Corona appears to shift techno music from its hedonist, more secula...
Some bands exist to obey your sweetest aural proclivities, but Mueran Humanos is no such band. This Argentinian, Berlin-based duo aims to unnerve and shudder with their strangely fascinating, queasy c...
Mo DJ is one of the first artists to successfully integrate Malian music within the electronic mixing spectrum. His journey began as cassette salesman at one of the station roads in Bamako, Mali, moon...
Spazio Disponibile presents
Aimée Portioli, also known as Grand River, is a Dutch-Italian composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer based in Berlin. While mainly connected to the fields of...
In the universe of Mykki Blanco, art and real life don’t imitate each other, but are symbiotic and reciprocal. Few artists could infiltrate mainstream audiences with cinematic, experimental trac...
Along with Shy Girl and Sega Bodega, French artist and producer Coucou Chloe is the co-founder of burgeoning label/collective NUXXE. Her malformed take on pop music is as mind-melting as it is urgent,...
Violinist and vocalist Sudan Archives writes, plays, and produces her own music. Drawing inspiration from Sudanese fiddlers, she is self-taught on the violin, and her unique songs also fold in element...
German DJ & producer Mark Ernestus is a sucker for African and Jamaican music. Ernestus’s seven-year collaboration with Ndagga Rhythm Force started during a trip through Senegal, where he wa...
Le Bazarre is a renowned and travelling market inspired by quality vintage, second hand and indie craft. It hosts curated vendors and takes place on a new, inspiring location within the city of Utrech...
Other pages
Wondering where & when Le Guess Who? takes place, where to get tickets and how to exchange them at the festival, or other questions? You might be able to find answers here.
Version March 2019
Since the 2018 implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Le Guess Who Foundation (hereafter referred to as LGW) is obligated to outline what personal...
Le Guess Who? 2019 (English)
Le Guess Who? is a festival that is dedicated to showcasing boundary-crossing music from all over the world, that questions the existing and embraces the unknown. Le Gues...
“A force for good, bringing us together and changing our minds.” – The Quietus
“One of the best in free-thinking, diverse and genre-blurring festivals.” – The...
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Program & Other Guides
Dive into our 2016 Program Guide with artists biographies; info on Satellite Events like Le Mini Who?, Le Gig Poster and Le Bazarre; and Juri Hiensch's Photo Exhi...
Dive into our 2016 program guide, with info on artists, side programs during the festival, like Le Mini Who?, Le Bazarre, Juri Hiensch's Photo Exhibition on 10 Years of Le Guess Who?, and Le Gig Poster.
The Netherlands
3FM: Eva Koreman nieuwe presentator 3voor12 radio 3FM: Le Guess Who? 2018: Ralph-Herman snapt niet wat Colin Stetson doet3FM: Timo op Le Guess Who: van gevoelige liedjes in een kerk t...
“With the able steer of festival curators Jenny Hval, Moon Duo, Fatoumata Diawara, and Iris Van Herpen, this year’s boundary-crossing festival Le Guess Who?? welcomed visitors from over...
Le Guess Who? takes pace across 20 locations in the city center of Utrecht; ranging from churches and galleries to theaters and pop venues. Most are within walking distance from each other. Here are a couple highlighted.
Lombok Festival consists of several outdoor and indoor locations, a food market and a musical line-up of Le Guess Who?-curated acts together with local musical talent. All hosted by and organized with residents, non-profit organizations and key figures living and working in Lombok.
Le Guess Who? takes pace across 20 locations in the city center of Utrecht; ranging from churches and galleries to theaters and pop venues. Most are within walking distance from each other. Here are a couple highlighted.
Le Guess Who? takes pace across 20 locations in the city center of Utrecht; ranging from churches and galleries to theaters and pop venues. Most are within walking distance from each other. Here are a couple highlighted.
Le Guess Who? takes pace across 20 locations in the city center of Utrecht; ranging from churches and galleries to theaters and pop venues. Most are within walking distance from each other. Here are a couple highlighted.
Le Guess Who? 2014
Audio Recordings
There are lots of recordings available in our audio archive, including Selda Bağcan, Baba Zula and many more from other editions of the festival.
Le Guess Who? 2018 Line-up
Le Guess Who? 2018 featured programs curated by Devendra Banhart, Moor Mother and Shabaka Hutchings. View the full line-up via the link below.
LE GUESS WHO? 2018 LIN...
LGW19 Line-up
Le Guess Who? 2019 featured programs curated by Fatoumata Diawara, Jenny Hval, Moon Duo, Patrick Higgins, Iris van Herpen & Salvador Breed and The Bug. View the full line-up via the...
Le Guess Who? 2013
Live videos from LGW13
VPRO 3VOOR12 captured live performances from different locations in Utrecht. Watch below: